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Saddam's trial won't put bread on Kurdish
tables
21.8.2006
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SULAIMANIYAH, Kurdistan-Iraq, August 21, 2006,
-- The sight of Saddam Hussein in the dock may offer
many Iraqi Kurds some bitter satisfaction, but those
living in the lands to which his forces laid waste
have more pressing problems.
At 10 am (0600 GMT) Monday, shortly before the
ousted Iraqi leader was due in court in Baghdad to
face genocide charges, the cities of the Kurdistan
region (North Iraq) fell silent for five
minutes in honour of the victims of the Anfal
campaign.
Over the next four months prosecutors will seek to
prove that Saddam and six members of his inner
circle orchestrated a bloody campaign in the late
1980s to exterminate more than 100,000 Kurdish
civilians and bring their breakaway region to heel.
Kurdish leaders are billing the trial as a
vindication of their struggle for autonomy and a
moment of national triumph, but life is still tough
for those left behind after the death squads and
poison gas clouds had dispersed.
"Saddam's trial means nothing to me. I live in a
single clay-brick room and rely on the generosity of
good people to survive," said Untie Hamida, a woman
in her 70s whose only son was among the victims of
the Anfal campaign.
Hamida lives in the Shorash district, once one of
the "prohibited zones" in which Iraqi forces could
allegedly kill Kurds at will. Her dreams are haunted
by visions of her slain son, and she complains of
official neglect.
Kurdish officials estimate that Anfal left 18,000
citizens destitute 18 years after the campaign
ended.
So far, families from the region have received only
150,000 dinars (100 dollars/80 euros) each in
emergency aid and, although foreign and local aid
agencies have begun redevelopment work, life is very
hard. |
A child walks past the graves of the victims of the
so-called Anfal campaign, where tens of thousands of
Kurds were killed in the north in the late 1980s, in
the village of Sewsenan in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan
(north Kurdish part of Iraq)
Photo:Reuters
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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In recent weeks there have been boisterous protests
by Kurds against their regional government,
demanding an improvement in basic services such as
water and electricity generation.
Fattah Ali Abdullah, 75, lost three of his sons and
two daughters during Anfal when the Kalar district
was attacked.
"If Saddam is tried or not we will remain in
desperate shape and no one to care for us," he said,
castigating the Kurdish regional government for not
doing more for the people in the three years since
Saddam's fall.
Abdullah too is living in a house made of baked
clay. "I'm afraid that it would collapse one day on
my grandsons and me," he sighed.
But even if today's worries are alomst overwhelming,
Abdullah has kept some anger in his heart. "I want
to see Saddam dead," he said.
Those too young to remember the dark days of Anfal
also continue to suffer.
Abdullah Ali lost his father to the violence and now
looks after his brother and his mother in a tiny
house in the Kurdish village of Simud.
"It's high time we should be helped out of poverty,"
he said, urging the government to grant parcels of
land to Anfal families to allow them to grow their
own food and survive the harsh northern winters.
"We don't want them to bandy the trial issue about
in the media. We want them to secure a good living
for us," he said.
The massacres also left social problems, including
the creation of a generation of widows that have
found it hard to survive in a traditionally male-led
culture. Some still hold vain hopes their men will
return.
"We have not seen their bodies. We will pin hopes on
their return as long as we live," wept one widow, 18
years after her husband was taken away.
"All these years, we worked to provide living for
our sons after losing our husbands," said Asima
Saadalla, a widow with five daughters.
"We urge the government to put up cash for the
deprivations we have met all this time," she told
AFP in the simple house built for her by a charity.
On Monday, after the bombast of the Baghdad trial,
the Kurds of the Kalar district south of
Sulaimaniyah are planning a more sombre ceremony.
Grandsons of the victims are to light candles.
AFP
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